Politicians do not spend vast sums of their personal money on their own races unless they have to. And most of our leaders were in very competitive races. Rob Garagiola beat incumbent Republican Senator Jean Roesser in his first race. All of the other top ten in total self-financing receipts ran for open seats. Howard Denis won an open seat in a 2000 special election, narrowly defeated Duchy Trachtenberg in 2002 and lost to Roger Berliner in 2006. First-time candidate Mike Lenett got 52% of the vote against two incumbent Delegates in the 2006 District 19 Senate primary. Ben Kramer, Robin Ficker and Dana Beyer share a common distinction: they are the only candidates in recent MoCo history to spend $70,000 or more of their own money on a losing race.

Here’s an estimate of receipts from family members. We included people who shared a surname or a residence with a candidate, or lived in the same residence with another person who did.